


Piece of Cake

by NamelesslyNightlock



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Pepper Potts, Baking, Defeat, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hugs, Humor, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, chocolate cake, surrender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 11:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18164591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: Tony knew that he and Loki were the perfect team, and an even better couple. They bested every opponent they faced and knew each other so well that they could move in tandem without thought.So… baking a cake should be easy, right?





	Piece of Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabentochter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/gifts), [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/gifts).



> Thanks STARS for the prompt!  
>   
> And Rabentochter, I hope you enjoy your fluff! ❤︎  
> 

It shouldn’t have been this difficult.

Tony knew that he and Loki made a fantastic team. He knew it, because they had _proved it_ time and time again, taking out enemies and defeating the rest of the Avengers in their sporadic capture the flag events with a chaotic finesse that was impossible to match. They knew each other so well they could move in tandem with limited communication, close enough that simple looks held entire conversations.

And yeah, bickering and stubbornness were always going to be present between two people as volatile as they both were, but for Tony, that only made it better– because what one missed the other would catch, and together, they could do anything.

They really were the perfect team, the perfect _couple_.

So why.

Couldn’t they bake.

A cake?

It should have been child’s play, _literal_ child’s play, because Tony knew he’d heard of children capable of making cakes before. They had a recipe before them– they had all of the ingredients. They probably had more intelligence between them than every Ivy League university combined, and they had enough determination to complete this task really, had the laws of storybooks been in play, the cake should have just made itself.

But despite all of that, it was just… not working. Not at all. Everything that could possibly go wrong had done so in the most spectacular way imaginable. They were a complete mess, covered in flour and eggs and, well, everything else that was meant to be in the bowl rather than streaked through their hair. They were arguing with more real bite than they had in _years_ , and the kitchen looked more like a war zone than several of their _actual_ war zones ever had.

Tony supposed they should just be relieved that they hadn’t yet set the oven on fire.

_Yet._

…Perhaps he should call DUM-E up to the penthouse, just in case.

The problem seemed to be that for all they were both geniuses, neither of them had ever actually tried to bake a cake before. After all, Tony had never had the reason nor the desire, and Loki had lived as a Prince in a literal palace for over a millennium. If he had ever wanted a cake, all he had to do was ask the staff with no need to busy himself in a kitchen.

But you see… they had been _bored_. The Avengers were all doing their own thing, and no one was up for a game of, well, anything. They could have pranked one or more of them, but they were both still of the opinion that lying low after the Rubber Duck Incident of last week was probably a good idea– at least until Clint had forgiven them and recovered from the trauma. There were no villains to attack, no missions to complete. And Pepper had asked that they both remain out of the public eye, at least until the new StarkPhone had been released– so they couldn’t even go and terrorise some poor tourists in Central Park with a hero vs ex-villain battle.

They were _bored_ , and that was a recipe for disaster more than anything else ever could be– so JARVIS had suggested that they both learn a new skill.

Tony thought the AI had probably been joking, but when he said, “You could learn to crochet, or garden, or bake a cake—” they had both turned and looked at each other with vicious smiles growing on their faces, a challenge issued and accepted. Maybe even the fact that it was meant to be a joke had spurred them into it even further.

There was something to be said about a competitive nature, because that was all it took for them to get the notion in their heads that, come hell or high water, they would _prove_ that they could bake a cake.

Still, they were sensible enough not to go overboard, and chose a recipe that wasn’t too ambitious– a simple chocolate, which was fine, because who doesn’t like chocolate, right? And chocolate cake is so much of a staple that surely, _surely_ it was something that they would both be able to manage.

The recipe was one from the internet– the blog it was posted on promised that it was the ‘Perfect Chocolate Cake’, and the reviews all gave it at least four stars. They believed that they had made a good choice, so Loki skywalked them to the store so they could collect all of the ingredients they needed, and they were so confident in their ability that they then went straight to the kitchen and started right away.

And in the beginning, it was _fun_. The first lot of flour to be spread around was the result of Tony flicking a bit in Loki’s hair when he had his back turned, and the smudge of cocoa on Tony’s cheek had come from Loki’s fingers as he’d leaned in to kiss him afterward when he’d seen Tony’s bright smile, not a touch of true irritation showing as they kissed gentle and sweet.

But then, maybe that had been their problem. Despite it starting as a challenge, they’d gone into it so sure that they could complete the task with ease—

And that simply hadn’t been the case.

“I don’t think we can fix this, Anthony,” Loki said, glaring down at the gluggy mess in the bowl like it had insulted him _personally_.

“I know we can,” Tony replied, trying to stay positive. “I think we just put in too many eggs, so all we have to do is add some more flour—”

“It does not work that way!”

“And how do you know?”

“The components are perfectly balanced, this recipe is designed for the best outcome. If we simply followed what it says _exactly_ , then we would have made the cake by now.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. He understood where Loki was coming from with that, with wanting to follow the tried and true instructions, but good reviews or not, it had still come from a _blog_. Anyone could be running that– some soccer mom who’d written it half asleep and stressed, a teenager who was doing it for a school project, a HYDRA agent who was trying to drive a wedge between them with an incorrect method that was impossible to get right. Tony knew the rules of the internet better than anyone, he knew what should and should not be trusted—

And he trusted his gut and his logic far more than a recipe they had found on bakingforthebusymom.com.

But despite his growing frustration, he didn’t want to say anything that he would regret. So, he drew in a deep breath to calm himself before offering a new suggestion.

“Okay, so more flour _and_ more cocoa,” he said. “I know for a _fact_ that doubling recipes is something that people do all the time. So, we’ll just add more of everything, and then we’ll have _two_ cakes, right? Even better.”

He reached around Loki to grab the bag of sugar, and then he moved to tip its contents into the bowl.

But—

“No,” Loki hissed, pushing his hand away and sending the sugar scattering _everywhere_. “You can’t just pour it in, if we’re going to do it this way then we’re going to have to measure the proper amounts _exactly_. It was this foolishness that got us into trouble in the first place—”

“This isn’t one of your potions, Loki,” Tony countered. “This is a _cake_. It’s not going to explode if there’s one grain of sugar too many, and more sugar will only make it taste better anyway—”

“That is not the way this works—”

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Tony said. “Sugar makes it sweet, right? We don’t want it to be bitter, we have to balance out all the extra cocoa.”

Loki paused, and turned to Tony with narrowed eyes. “What extra cocoa?”

“Welllll…” Tony offered a sheepish smile. “I thought the cocoa was chocolate so I might have thrown in some more when you weren’t looking? Except then I licked my fingers and– _eurgh._ ” A shudder ran down his spine. And generally, Tony didn’t even _have_ that much of a sweet-tooth– he took his coffee as black as it came, thank you very much. But when you’re expecting chocolate, and then your mouth is assaulted with the taste of _that—_

Just.

Well, it’s not great, that’s all.

“Anthony,” Loki groaned, running a hand through his hair and streaking it with even more batter. Loki didn’t seem to mind– he probably realised that it couldn’t get any worse at this point, anyway.

“I’m sorry, okay!” Tony tried. “I just, I wanted this to be the best cake ever—”

“If we had just followed the instructions—”

“The instructions are shit. What does it even mean to ‘separate’ an egg?” Tony exclaimed. “What, do we make it sit in the naughty corner? Give it its own private carton?”

“If you had asked, Sir—”

“No, JARVIS,” Tony said with a glare that he knew the AI would understand was directed at him. “We can _do_ this.”

Though Tony’s determination was still at a high, his confidence had certainly waned a little. But that didn’t mean that either of them wanted to stop trying. Because sure, it had started as a bit of fun, just something to blot out the boredom, but as time had gone on the cake had become a matter of pride.

Neither Loki nor Tony had encountered a challenge that they could _not beat_ , and they were either going to get this cake made or they were going to go down swinging.

“Sirs,” JARVIS said again, his voice low and gentle, as if he were choosing his words with the utmost caution. “I know what this means to you, but perhaps it is time to accept some assistance. There is no shame in asking for help.”

And, okay, so Tony knew that JARVIS had a point there. He knew that in this, they could ask for aid and no one would look down on them—

No one, of course, save themselves.

Because yeah, they could present the cake to the others and tell them that they had made it without help, that they had accomplished something they could be proud of– but then, _they_ would know, and that just didn’t sit well with either of their self-reliant temperaments.

Then again, at this point, if they didn’t ask for help they weren’t going to end up with a cake at all, which, honestly, would be sadder than any loss of pride. And looking down at the mess in their bowl, Tony wasn’t sure that even JARVIS’ knowledge would be able to help them fix it. It was lumpy and stretchy and did not look at all appetising, and really, it was beginning to seem like starting again was going to be their only option– and then there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just end up making all of the same mistakes.

Tony’s breath escaped him in a heavy sigh, and he reached out to curl his sticky fingers around Loki’s equally sticky wrist.

“Hey,” he said, the words feeling wrong on his tongue despite the comfort that he hoped they would provide. “It’s okay.”

Loki’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and Tony could tell that he was _this close_ to snapping. Because it wasn’t okay, not really. Giving up was in neither of their natures, and to do so now – to admit defeat and surrender to a _cake_ – was a bitter pill even larger than the time that Thor defeated Tony in a game of chess.

Both searching for and offering warmth, Tony used his hold on Loki’s wrist to pull him close, wrapping his arms around Loki’s shoulders and coaxing his head to rest on Tony’s shoulder. They held each other tightly in their defeat, taking support where they could.

And, okay. So maybe they were overreacting, but it was just… they had been so sure that they could do this, that this was something they could learn and conquer as a team. To fail so spectacularly didn’t hurt just because they had _failed_ , but because…

Well, Tony didn’t know for sure how it was for Loki. But Tony had just wanted to have fun baking a cake with the man that he loved, indulging in some domesticity that he always adored losing himself amongst.  

But standing there in the middle of the debris, holding on to Loki and just… being close, everything about it just didn’t seem to matter so much. Their arguments faded away, all the blame was no longer relevant, and they both relaxed into each other. Tony let his cheek rest atop Loki’s head, and smiled as Loki turned his face into the curve of Tony’s neck. Their height difference made the position a little awkward, but it still felt _nice_ —

And then Loki’s tongue darted out to lick at the skin of Tony’s neck, and a laugh bubbled up his throat. Tony hoped that Loki had managed to find a bit of sugar rather than a smear of raw egg, but it made him grin nonetheless. Then Loki looked up with a smile of his own, and Tony leaned in to brush their lips together in a kiss. It was like their wounded pride melted away at the touch, and they lost themselves in the gentle press of their bodies, in the light touches of hands and lips that stayed chaste, but were more than enough to chase the frustration away. After all, so long as they had each other, then nothing else could stop them from enjoying the way that they matched.

And in the face of that, the stupid cake didn’t even matter.

(Besides, the recipe was probably faulty anyway. Yeah, that had to be it.)

And when the moment was brought to an end, the peace they had found stayed with them despite the reminder of exactly why they had needed the comfort in the first place.

“What on _Earth_ is going on in here?”

They both remained entwined even as their kiss broke and they turned to look for the source of the interruption.

Pepper was standing over in the living room, clearly having just come from the elevator. She was wearing sharp business attire and heels that looked like they were capable of more damage than one of Loki’s daggers, and she had a bundle of documents held in both hands– no doubt something for Tony to look over and sign. As her gaze scanned the kitchen, she arched a single brow in a mix of incredulity and amusement.

And maybe, had she entered five minutes prior, Tony might have felt a little sheepish. But the kiss had managed to wipe away all of Tony’s previous annoyance, and he was able to answer Pepper’s question with a smile.

“We’re baking a cake,” he said brightly.

“Right,” Pepper said disbelievingly, her eyes flicking over the mess they had made of the counter once again. “ _Why?_ ”

“Why not?” Loki replied. “It seemed like a good way to pass the time.”

“Also, I wanted cake,” Tony added. “What other reason would someone have to make one?”

Pepper’s lips pressed together, like she was trying to hold in a snort, or maybe peels of laughter– though the spark dancing in her eyes gave her away.

“And how did it go?” she asked.

Tony glanced to Loki– Loki raised his brows, and then Tony wrinkled his nose at him before turning back to Pepper.

“All in all,” Tony said, removing one arm from Loki’s waist to gesture at… ah, at all they had accomplished. “I think we did pretty well, for a first attempt.”

Pepper actually _did_ snort at that, though it wasn’t really critical– she simply seemed fond. Then, without hesitation, she placed the documents she was holding on an arm of the couch, far away from the dangers that lurked in the kitchen.

As she moved into the kitchen herself and stepped past where he and Loki were now simply leaning into each other’s sides, Tony almost reached out to stop her, not wanting her ruin her crisp clothing, to mess up her… well, just the general flour-free look that she currently had going on, really. But he paused as he realised that his hands were still smeared with batter, and that touching her would only be a mistake.

It didn’t seem like there was really anything to be concerned over anyway– she appeared to glide over the flour-covered floor without any difficulty, her heels not hindering her steps in any way. And when she reached the bowl, she simply gave it a sweeping glace, pushed up the sleeves of her blouse, and got to work with a determined tilt to her lips.

Tony watched every single movement she made, and yet, he still would never be able to recall exactly what she did. She reached for ingredients, poured them into the bowl without the need for a measuring cup or weighing scales, appearing to be assessing the amounts with her eyes alone.

When Tony glanced to Loki, he saw that his lover was just as shocked as he was, and they exchanged a look of awe before turning back to watch Pepper work in complete and utter wonder.

It was a remarkable feat of ingenuity and skill, an incredible fusion of precision and approximation.

And somehow, less than ten minutes later, Pepper was sliding their corrected batter into the oven. Tony had no doubts at all that the chocolate cake would be delicious, that it would be moist and sweet, the most perfect cake that ever did cake– at least, the most perfect that it ever could be, considering its origins. And as Pepper closed the oven door and straightened up with a grace that should not be allowed on heels so high, Tony realised that she had not a speck of flour on her cheek, and not a hair out of place.

“There,” she said, dusting imaginary dry ingredients from her hands. “You’ll be able to have your cake. Tony, I trust that you will find time to sign the papers I brought while it cooks?” She paused, and looked them over from top to bottom before adding, “Just, make sure that you wash your hands, first.”

Tony found that he could do little else in response other than gape, and he knew that Loki was much the same.

Realising this, Pepper sighed, shook her head with a smile, and moved back toward the elevator. “JARVIS?” she said over her shoulder. “Make sure those two remember to take it out in twenty minutes, will you?”

“Of course, Ms Potts.”

“Pep,” Tony called, curiosity finally pulling him from his shock. “Wait a sec.”

She paused and turned back, her expression amused. “Yes, Tony?”

“How… did you do that?”

Pepper smirked. “Oh, that’s simple.”

She leaned forward slightly as if she were about to tell a secret, and her eyes glinted dangerously as she whispered one, single word.

“ _Magic_.”

Loki muttered something under his breath as she offered them a smirk, and then she was gone, the elevator whisking her back down to the SI offices below.

Tony, meanwhile, let out a single bark of fond laughter, not even caring that Pepper had managed to do in mere minutes what they had failed at so spectacularly. The fact that she had done it, that the cake had at least been defeated by _someone_ , was more than enough for him.

 _And_ , yeah, it did mean that they would get a cake to eat.

A cake, which would need—

“Oh _great_ ,” Tony said, his gaze caught on the disarray smeared all over the counter. Because… well, the mess itself would be easy to clean– Tony knew that Loki _could_ do it with a simple twitch of his fingers, and that he _would_ with the proper incentive.

But there was something far more concerning at hand.

“JARVIS,” Tony sighed, untangling himself from Loki in preparation for war and resigning himself to his fate. “Find us a recipe for chocolate icing, will you? And please, make it simple this time.”

If the determined glint in Loki’s eye was anything to go by, then this venture would be no less dramatic than the last.

But hey, at the very least Tony was sure that they’d manage to avoid their boredom for a fair bit longer yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, after all of this- Tony and Loki aren't going to let their defeat go. They try and try and try again, improving every time until eventually, they manage it. (And when they present Peter's birthday cake several weeks later with smiles that are truly _smug_ , Pepper and JARVIS are very, very proud of them.)


End file.
